by Lorenzo Pallavicini –
Several countries with an Islamic majority, maintaining a less “shouted” profile than the Islamic Republic of Iran, have elevated Hamas to political interlocutors by financing this organization, ever since 2007, following a conflict entirely within the Palestinian galaxy, the party gained control of the Gaza Strip at the expense of political rival al-Fatah, heir of the historic leader Yasser Arafat.
In particular, Qatar has played a significant role in Hamas’s double-breasted strategy, politics and weapons. It is no coincidence that the Qatari monarchy hosts in its country prominent Palestinian leaders such as Ismail Haniyeh, or Khaled Meshal, political minds of the organization, while huge amounts of money, hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, have flowed into Gaza.
These loans are attributable to the policy promoted by the Qatari emirs in support of the Muslim Brotherhood group in Egypt, allies of Hamas who oppose the normalization of relations with Israel, an element that characterized the governments of the military juntas Sadat, Mubarak and al-Sisi , but they are not the only motivation.
For Qatar, having supported Hamas is a way to compete with the main player in the Gulf, namely Saudi Arabia which, under strong pressure from its US ally, has reduced its financial support to Islamic groups considered extremist over the last twenty years , including Hamas, and did not support the Islamic-led Morsi government in Egypt elected in 2012 and overthrown in 2013 by the Egyptian military.
The friction between the two gulf monarchies, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have been very strong and in 2017 even led to an air, naval and land blockade by the Saudis and their allies with accusations leveled against the Qataris of finance terrorism. Behind these frictions was Saudi intolerance for Qatar’s strong activism to elevate itself to a privileged political interlocutor of the Sunni world, to which Hamas and a large part of the Palestinian people belong.
Huge funding has arrived in the Gaza Strip area from Qatar or its emissaries, managed on site directly by Hamas, and it is conceivable that it may also have been used to finance opaque areas, including militiamen from the Ezzedin al-Qassam brigade. It should be remembered, for example, that in 2021 Hamas asked the Qatari government to continue receiving financing in cash and not by bank transfer, which would have made such payments traceable.
The economic situation of the Gaza Strip leaves little room for building an economy independent of external financing, as this territory is unable to develop, also following the naval and land blockade imposed by the Israeli authorities in 2007, with Gaza being the only for example gas, is forced to depend on the Israeli arch-enemy.
Qatar, also in this case, has guaranteed the financing for the construction of the gas pipeline which from the Leviathan field in Israel should bring gas to the only power plant in operation in the Gaza Strip, for a value of over 60 million dollars investment.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has given a boost to gas trade flows between Qatar and Europe, and the need to increase quantities of liquefied natural gas means that production in the country will grow by more than 60% under long-term contracts with countries such as Germany, for a 15-year agreement for the supply of 2 million tonnes of gas per year, in addition to the expansion of the North Field East project, in which Eni is also involved, which will allow to increase the export capacity of the LNG from 77 mtpa to 110 mtpa.
It is clear that Qatar aspires to a strong negotiating role starting from an advantageous position, since it can have both the means to lead Hamas and its allies to reduce the severity of the ongoing conflict and, if Israel’s reaction proves to be an unprecedented harshness, a strong weapon towards Western countries and in particular the EU, i.e. the energy one.
This dual capability secures Qatar’s position in the ongoing conflict, in which it can gain from both sides. In fact, if Qatar were to manage to mediate, for example, the release of some hostages, it would gain further international prestige which would help to “make people forget” the unclear funding that has arrived in the Gaza Strip over the years.
Otherwise it could gain ground at the expense of other Gulf powers on one of the most deeply felt causes of the Arab world, the Arab-Israeli conflict, using the gas weapon as a possible threat against Western powers to induce them to put strong pressure on the government Netanyahu so that he does not exaggerate with the reaction to the violent terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7th.
In this way, Qatar will continue to compete with the other major player in the region, Saudi Arabia, whose possible normalization agreement in relations with Israel would be seen by part of the Arab world as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause and not even justifiable. with the excuse of curbing Iranian Shiite expansionism and its influence on Sunni Islamic groups in the region.
